I’m not sure if we’ve considered all of the implications of mixing money with social, but it’s a fun experiment regardless.

The people that say zaps are the new likes… I like your adventurous spirit, but feel maybe there’s more to money and social than meets the eye.

When you introduce money into an app which doesn’t have a primary goal of sending money, it can get weird in terms of social dynamics and perception.

For example, content may become tailored towards getting zaps, drowning out other types of interactions and possibly eroding trust and cooperation between people.

There’s also the weird dynamic of comparison. Even if you don’t try to, your mind may drift into “oh, they are making more than me on their notes”. I know likes elicit a similar feeling of envy (even if you are not actively envious), but I am curious how money changes things. I don’t have all the answer and suspect there are deep psychological implications.

There may be misalignment of goals as well. This is already evident now where we have some people who are solely focused on stacking. We have automated accounts who post AI generated work that wasn’t created by them — presumably for the sake of stacking sats (otherwise why not credit?) And this is just the start. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Steemit, but it’s basically a shitcoin website that monetizes content. If you go to the site now, it’s a steaming pile of shit. I doubt anyone actually reads anything. Maybe a few.. but you don’t see this website in the headlines or popping up on any meaningful channels online. As far as the world is concerned it’s invisible. Not saying zap-powered content will end up in the same boat, but there are probably lessons to be learned there and things we can observe.

Social serves a larger goal than just weeding out signal in noise. Not everything needs to provide value all the time. People come to be heard, to feel part of a group, to laugh, to hate… and none of those things involve money. I’m not saying they couldn’t, but we don’t know the full consequence of introducing money into these types of interactions.

I’m not advocating for something being right or wrong or how to do this or that, but more generally curious about the intersection of social and money. I’m here for the ride to see how things play out and how the world reacts to it. 

If you have any knowledge on this subject (psychology of money in social interactions), I’d love to hear your thoughts and perspective.